Diferulic acids

Diferulic acids are dimers of ferulic acid.(1) They have been found in the cell walls of some plants: sugar beet and Chinese water chestnut.(2) It is thought that they have a structural function in plant cell walls, making the tissues of the plant more resistant to cell separation during heating, allowing them to maintain their crisp texture. Just as ferulic acid is not the proper IUPAC name, the diferulic acids also tend to have trivial names that are more commonly used than the correct IUPAC name.

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Curcumin can be hydrolyzed (alkaline) to yield 2 molecules of ferulic acid.

Production

Most diferulic acids are not commercially available and must be synthesised in house. They can be extracted from plant cell walls by concentrated solutions of alkali, the resulting solution is then acidified and phase separated in to organic solvent before analysis by High performance liquid chromatography.

References

1. Physiology and biochemistry of plant cell walls, C.Brett and K.W.Waldron, 2nd Ed. (1996).
2. New discoveries relating to diferulates, J.Ralph, J.H.Grabber, R.D.Hatfield and G.Wende, 1996 USDFRC Research Summary, p70-71.